7.2 Planning

I sighed yet again. This wouldn't do. If I was going to plan something this massive a scale, the least I'd want to have would be some basic info of the prospective battleground. I knew that most, if not all of the Nenners here knew the place like the back of their hand, but it still wouldn't replace first-hand experience. I would've gone to the outskirts myself, but I wasn't sure if the guards had completely forgotten about me yet. At least with Lise, she could somewhat blend in with her fairly common brown hair.

"Never thought I'd hate having anything other than black as a hair color," I muttered as I ran a finger through my namesake red locks. It was cool, but it wasn't helping when it made you very recognizable. "Maybe I shoul-"

Nope. Stop it, brain. You're distracting yourself again.

Retreading my focus back to my makeshift map, I weighed my options. I knew there were at least two exits out of this place; one leading to the Aufteilung Barracks, and the other leading towards wherever it was I woke up in. It would essentially kill us to take the exit leading to a place where there'd assuredly be Zahlers abound, so the other large door was the only option left to take.

I just had to remember where it was.

Next on the list then: exit strategy... Which was impossible to formulate until I get the location of our would-be exit.

I tapped on the ground as my patience wore thin, my attention span decreasing by the second as I tried to keep my mind occupied. What else was there to think about anyway?

"Rouge!" a voice called out from beyond my periphery, Emeraud? "I have a question!"

Shaking my head at my own inadequacy, I turned to face the green-haired woman, doing my damn best to keep my eyes on the straight and narrow. "W-What is it?" Damn... how was she so huge when food was as scarce as it was down here?

"We've been making these rifles since we arrived here," Emeraud started, pulling out said rifle from her back. "I know Bernstein doesn't really see it, but I think I know what you're planning."

I blinked curiously at her statement. Really? She knew my plan before I even had one?

"Pray tell," I challenged, equal parts confused and hopeful as I stared at my fellow Nenner. "What am I planning?"

If she thought she knew what I was doing, then maybe she had a better idea of how to bust out of this place. The woman was at least a few years my senior here after all, and she'd lived here for just as long.

With a keen ear, I leaned closer to the lime-haired woman, hoping, just hoping, to get a semblance of an idea of what to do if she were in my shoes.

"I think you're going to have two groups of people leading the charge," Emeraud started, a finger on her temple as she pieced together my non-existent strategy. "You surely have skill with a blade if you can kill the Blutmond, so you're going to lead the charge against the guards with the rest of us wielding these rifles from the backlines."

"Hmm..." I nodded in false understanding as I ran her idea through my head.

From a fundamental, military standpoint, it had some merit as a basic strategy. Seeing as I, and in some capacity, Lise, were the only Nenners present that had proven combat experience, we'd have to be the ones to break the enemy formation from the front.

That was if they even had a formation for us to break to begin with.

But back to the strategy, my group would most probably be a small contingent of volunteers, a militia of sorts. With the prospective riflemen by the backlines firing from behind us, my group should be able to dodge, or at least duck at a moment's notice. Also, with the amount of unwanted attention that Lise and I were still attracting to the Furnace, it was probably only a matter of time before they noticed the amount of disappearing scrap metal and extra rations that we were consuming. That dwindling time meant less time for us to train these guys on proper weapons handling and the like.

Not that I knew much, of course, but something was better than nothing. And we didn't even have the possible time for that.

"It's not as easy as it sounds, Emeraud," I sounded out. "We still don't know what to expect from a possible suppression force once the party gets started."

"Suppression? Party?"

Curse my modern sensibilities. "I mean- when the guards send out reinforcements once the plan begins," I quickly explained. "We only know of two possible entrances into the Furnace. We might get flank- er.. cut off from behind."

I clicked my tongue in annoyance as I was forced to simplify my vocabulary. My BS military speak was really making it hard to convey what I wanted. I should probably write a dictionary once we got out of here.

"Oh.." I cringed as she seemed dejected by me shooting down her idea. "I-I thought that was it.."

Well, it wasn't really, but it was a start, at least.

"What else then?" I asked, prompting her to at least give me more options to think about. "I'm sure you have more of a general idea about the guards here than I do."

"H-Huh?"

"I have a plan." Again, I really didn't. "But that doesn't mean yours doesn't have its advantages."

I gave out my kindest smile as I felt like a no-good cheater for attempting to squeeze ideas out of her head. Hopefully, she'd give me something that I could use.

"Oookayyy..."

With a focused hum, Emeraud looked down at my improvised map of the place, her eyes seemingly tracing out all of the possible angles for an escape.

"I guess..." With a stick, the woman traced a path from our current location leading towards a Dezimal ration center, before then circling back around to the center and towards a location that I didn't recognize. "I think a small group of fighters should go to the ration site to create a distraction. That way, the rest of us can go to the exit over here."

I blinked. Wait.. "You know where the exit is?"

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